


Just You and Me, Together for Eternity

by azazelisawesome



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, au once the campaign is over, what happens to vax after the campaign ends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-26 01:53:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12048861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azazelisawesome/pseuds/azazelisawesome
Summary: After his death, Vax gets started on his eternity with the Raven Queen.





	Just You and Me, Together for Eternity

The last thing he saw before darkness covered his vision was his family. 

Grog, quieter than usual, standing at the back of the group. 

Percy, face hard, watching his wife. 

Pike, tears pouring down her face, wishing him happiness. 

Scanlan, eyes watery, regret clear in his expression. 

Keyleth, sobbing, cursing the Raven Queen as she kissed him for the last time. 

Vex’ahlia, hands clutching the sides of his face, crying, saying that she loved him. 

And then he felt a cold touch on the back of his neck, and they were gone. 

Vax’ildan of Vox Machina was dead. 

\---------------------------------

When the darkness cleared away and Vax could finally see again, he found himself in…a hallway? It stretched out maybe 30 feet in front of him, with doors lining either side. The floor was made of a dark stone and the walls were painted all sorts of colors, but primarily dark reds, blues, and greens. 

Even though there was probably no point, Vax stealthed and carefully crept down the hallway, checking each door as he came to it. All of them were unlocked and not trapped, and upon opening them, he found a series of bedrooms. Each was decorated differently, but they were all lavish and filled with dark colors. At the end of the hallway was the final door, which opened onto a winding stairway. Confused, Vax cautiously made his way down the stairs. 

Was this where followers of the Raven Queen went when they died? he wondered. Or was he somewhere else? 

After an indeterminable amount of time, Vax reached the bottom of the winding stairway. As he stepped onto the same type of floor that he saw in the hallway above and took in the room around him, the half-elf gasped. 

The room was massive, with walls that stretched maybe a hundred feet up before they met a ceiling. Lengthwise, it was huge—Vax suspected that if every room in Scanlan’s magnificent mansion was laid end to end, it would just barely match the size of this place. 

As he started to walk away from the stairway and towards the distant wall to his right, Vax felt the air—which was heavier than usual—grow colder. The nearer he stepped, the icier it became, and by the time he was close enough to the far side of the room to see the throne, Vax was shaking with cold. 

The throne itself was huge but simple in design, made of that same dark stone. Vax’s attention was quickly drawn away from the throne and to the figure sitting upon it.

The Raven Queen looked as she always did—white porcelain mask, raven-feathered dress, and an intimidating presence—but this was the first time that Vax really appreciated just how massive she was in comparison to him. She towered over her champion, her head just barely avoiding brushing against the ceiling as she turned to stare down at him. His body was about the same size as one of her fingers, and it was one of these that she now extended towards him. 

“I see that you have completed your task, my champion,” the Raven Queen said, her voice somehow soft. “And you have returned to me at last.” 

Vax swallowed anxiously before responding, “Yes, my lady.” He knelt down on the ice-cold floor and bowed his head respectfully, averting his gaze from the goddess in front of him. “What would you have me do?” 

There was a brief silence, followed by the feeling of a gentle touch under his chin. Vax felt his head lift until he was staring back into the now human-sized face of the Raven Queen, who was no longer on the throne, but instead stood in front of him. His heart jumped nervously as he looked into the voids where her eyes should have been in the mask. 

“I would have you walk with me, and help me complete my work,” the Raven Queen said quietly, never moving her gaze from him. “I would have both of us escort souls to the other side.” She ceased speaking and tilted her head to the right, seemingly waiting for her champion to respond in some way. 

Vax could feel himself shaking with more than just cold this time. So this was what she wanted? Someone to take dead people to the afterlife with her? His non-existent stomach tightened as the images of Vex’ahlia, Keyleth, and the rest of Vox Machina popped into his head. In other words, when they died, he would be the one to take them to their final destination? The thought made Vax want to sob, but it also made him happy in an uncomfortable way. He would see his family again, hopefully a very long time from now. 

A previous conversation with the Raven Queen popped into his mind, and Vax tried maintain a steady voice as he said, “Your work is lonely, so you would like me to keep you company.” It wasn’t a question. Vax hesitated a moment, before admitting in a low voice, “At the moment, I’m feeling lonely, too. I’ll help you.” 

A small smile spread across the usually-blank porcelain face. The Raven Queen moved her finger away from her champion’s chin and up the edge of his face before she cupped his cheek with her hand. Warmth filtered in through both her skin and demeanor, and Vax relaxed slightly. 

“Perhaps we can help each other,” she whispered. The Raven Queen leaned down and kissed his forehead, then pulled back and said:

“Let’s go.” 

\------------------------

Vax wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. Maybe he thought that getting to dead souls would involve tracking down their fate threads. Maybe he thought that they would have to travel for some time to get to the right place. Regardless, Vax figured that this whole process of taking souls to the other side would take some time—an assumption that was quickly refuted. 

The Raven Queen offered Vax her hand, and the moment he took it, the throne room disappeared. In its place was darkness, though a familiar darkness. Looking around from where he floated in the emptiness, Vax could see traces of golden thread spreading as far out as he could see. They almost looked like a fine woven golden carpet below him. 

Next to him, still holding his hand, was the Raven Queen, who had thankfully stayed in her mortal size. She stared at a spot in front of them and remained silent. Just as Vax opened his mouth to ask what they were doing, a rush of cold air blew past the two of them, startling the half-elf and causing him to grip the goddess’ hand tighter. As the wind whipped his long hair back, Vax saw the image of a person begin to form in the spot that the Raven Queen watched. The person was faded at first, like a ghost, but then the individual solidified into a young man. 

The man appeared to be human, with short blonde hair that was so short it was barely hair at all. His skin was tanned, as if he spent most of his time in the sun, and his clothes were loose on his body. He blinked and suddenly breathed in deeply, gasping for air. Doubling over, the young man took a moment to slow down the pace of his air intake before finally glancing up and noticing the two of them. He frowned, appearing more confused than afraid for the moment.

“What’s going on?” he asked. 

The Raven Queen, still clutching Vax’s hand, stepped forward so that she and the man were only a few feet apart. “You are dead,” she explained simply. “I am here to take you to the Blessed Fields of Elysium.” 

The young man blinked once, twice, and then—yeah, there was the fear. “I can’t be dead,” he moaned. “I just—it was just a fever!”

“The fever was merely a symptom of a serious disease,” the Raven Queen said matter-of-factly. “You would not have known.” 

Shaking his head now, the young man took several more steps back from the goddess. “No…no, this can’t be happening. This isn’t happening!” He said this last part louder, and Vax felt a pang of empathy. The half-elf supposed that he should probably say something encouraging to convince the young man to accept his fate, but images of his friends appeared in his head again, and Vax found it difficult to think of anything positive about this man’s situation. 

“And even if this is real, I’m not going!” the young man declared now, holding his head high in a futile attempt to convince them that he wasn’t afraid. “I’m getting married in the summer, and nothing you do is going to stop me.” 

The Raven Queen stepped forward again and reached out her free hand towards the young man. “All mortals have a time to die,” she said coldly. “Your moment has arrived.” 

The goddess suddenly clenched her hand tight into a fist, and the man vanished. In his place was a single dull golden thread. 

The Raven Queen bent down, picked up the thread between two cold fingers, and turned to Vax, who was struggling to contain his grief for this man he didn’t even know. Extending her hand towards him, the goddess whispered, “Take it.” She released her grip on the thread, and Vax quickly grabbed it from the air, feeling as if he didn’t have much choice anyway. Looking down, he examined the young man’s…life? Soul? It no longer glowed like the other threads in the tapestry, but it felt odd. It was thicker than Vax expected, and almost had a metallic quality to it. 

The Raven Queen’s grip on his hand tightened, and Vax looked back at her to see that the goddess was watching him carefully. “We now go to the Blessed Fields,” she stated. “Do not let go of the thread or my hand.” 

\-----------------------------

With his free hand, Vax carefully placed the thread onto the vibrant green grass while the Raven Queen stood just behind him. As soon as he let go of it, the golden string dissolved, its remains sinking into the ground and leaving no trace that it had been there at all. Startled, Vax threw a concerned look at the goddess. 

“Do not fear,” she said reassuringly. There is was again—that small smile. “His soul can rest now.” 

Vax supposed he should find that comforting, but right now he was having difficulty seeing the bright side in anything that had just happened. A man was dead, and now his fiancée would suffer because of his loss. That was just “how things were meant to be,” huh? 

Vax remained silent as the Raven Queen transported them again, this time back to the throne room. He almost gasped all over again; it was going to take time before he could get used to the insane size. 

The goddess finally released his hand, and Vax pulled away from her without thinking. He could feel two parts of him warring: the part of him who was the Paladin and Champion of the Raven Queen, and the part of him who had just wanted to live a happy life with his family. The latter half’s resentment was growing, and Vax struggled to push it down. He was going to be with the Raven Queen for eternity, and bitterness towards her would not make that easy. 

Meeting the goddess’ gaze once more, Vax realized that she was studying him again. “Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked bluntly, unable to keep the resentment completely out of his voice. 

Her eyes narrowed. Then, in one fluid movement, the Raven Queen stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, pulling the half-elf into an embrace. Vax froze in surprise, and the goddess gently guided his head so that it lay on her shoulder. Stroking his hair, she murmured, “It’s alright to be upset. Most mortals curse me in death.” 

Vax’s breathing hitched, and though he tried to stop it, he could feel tears start to well up in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said, wrapping his arms around the Raven Queen in kind. She was warmer to the touch than he anticipated, and he clutched onto her tightly. No longer able to hold it in, Vax started to sob, his breaths coming in gasps. She just held him, running her fingers through his hair, whispering occasionally. 

When the sobs finally ceased, the goddess guided her champion back up the stairs and suggested that he get some sleep (while not a necessary activity, it was still a pleasant experience). With her eyes on his back as he walked, Vax found a room that was decorated with dark blue sheets, curtains, walls, etc. and stepped inside. He flopped down onto the bed and fell asleep almost immediately, grateful for the chance to escape from his eternal prison for a little while.


End file.
